Tensile constitutive behavior of high and ultra-high performance fibre-reinforced-concretes

High Performance Fibre-Reinforced-Cement-Composites and Ultra-High Performance Fibre-Reinforced-Concretes, also named HPFRCCs and UHPFRCs respectively, are today widely used as repair and strengthening existing structures, such as bridge decks, pavements, piers etc. Simple test methods to characterize its mechanical behavior are requested, in order to ensure that the product meets the designer's requirements, especially in term of tensile behavior. Various test methods are available, even though a proper correlation between direct and indirect tensile (e.g. flexural) tests is needed. In this paper a model based on the “Composite Material Theory” (CMT) was developed to predict the flexural behavior of three commercialized SFRCs once the direct tensile strength is measured. A good agreement was found between experimental results and the values predicted by the model.